Menus of the sixteenth century Vatican

March 3, 2017 8:43 PM

His banquets were the talk of royal and ecclesiastical courts throughout Christendom; one of them comprised hundreds of dishes, including seventy-seven different desserts and edible statues of weird beasts from the Orient, Greek gods, and cavorting nymphs. Once their bellies had been filled, guests were presented with posies of silk flowers attached to stems of pure gold.
posted by Chrysostom (7 comments total)

So, Scappi was the Guy Fieri of his day, then?
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:52 PM on March 3, 2017

I am really curious to sample that omelette!
posted by oheso at 1:37 AM on March 4, 2017

The modern concept of white poracline figures on or near a dining table comes from them originally being made out of spun sugar!
posted by The Whelk at 6:12 AM on March 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

So, Scappi was the Guy Fieri of his day, then?

Bite your parrot tongues!
posted by Splunge at 11:04 AM on March 4, 2017

So, season four of Hannibal involves time traveling, then?
posted by erinfern at 12:00 PM on March 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

More astonishing was Leo’s supposed rock-star insistence that all the empty silverware be tossed out the window at the end of each course. An official more sensitive to his Holiness’s mounting debts apparently arranged to have nets fixed beneath the windows to save them platters from the Tiber.

That's wrong. Pope Leo was present at this 1518 banquet, but it was thrown (so to speak) by Agostino Chigi, the Richest Man in Rome, at what is now the Palazzo Farnese. (The source is Sigismondo Tizio, who was also present, and who mentions it in his voluminous history of Siena, both he and Chigi being by birth Sienese.)
posted by BWA at 1:29 PM on March 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

BWA's correction notwithstanding, the parts about Leo X make for amusing reading, especially for those raised as Catholics.
posted by oluckyman at 3:42 PM on March 4, 2017 [1 favorite]